


Reconnecting

by greygerbil



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 19:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7374472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "October Surprise", Rafael gets a call from his old friend Eddie. Some things between them are as they used to be, but others have changed quite drastically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconnecting

**Author's Note:**

> I know Eddie was only in one episode, but I seriously liked him so much I'm considering doing a multichapter thing with these two.

Mid-sentence, Rafael’s reading of a mail from the Brooklyn D.A.’s office was interrupted by the screen turning dark, the words _Unknown Caller_ flashing across it. Balancing his empty coffee cup and takeout container towards the kitchen, he stalled. His first instinct was to ignore it. His limbs were lead-heavy with tiredness and it was almost ten in the evening, not an unreasonable time to make oneself unavailable. It could just be telemarketing spam or another journalist who had somehow gotten their hands on his number and wanted to drag him into Alex’s ridiculous media campaign. In truth, however, too many victims, witnesses and colleagues whose names he had not crammed into the too-long contact list had this number. Rafael knew from the start that not taking the call was just a sweet, stress-fuelled dream he could indulge for no longer than a moment.

“Barba,” he said curtly, as he lifted the phone to his ear and sat the cup down in the sink with the other hand.

“Hey... uh, it’s Eddie,” Eddie said, slowly, like he wasn’t quite sure he got the right number.

“Eddie – how are you?”

Immediately, instinctively, Rafael’s voice softened just a little.

“Er, good. Is this a bad time? I can call back.”

“No, I just thought you were more work.”

After chucking the take-out container into the trash, Rafael wandered back into the living room and fell down in his armchair. At the other end of the line, Eddie snorted.

“Work now? Don’t they ever let you go home?”

“Only if I behave,” Rafael said dryly, glancing at the papers spread out over his coffee table, “although I’m not sure there’s a substantial difference anymore. I’m not in the office now, though. Was there a reason you called?”

“No, not really.” Eddie paused. “I just wanted to ask if you’re holding up okay. I mean, I’ve been watching the news...”

“Ah.”

Rafael paused, fingers tight around the phone. He’d gotten a few pats on the back from SVU, assurances that he’d done the right thing. His mother and _abuelita_ were at least not angry at him anymore for ruining Alex’s chances after he had spent an afternoon explaining the case in more detail than he was probably authorised to.

However, no one had checked in with him again. There wasn’t a reason to. Alex was just talking, after all, and words were cheap and forgotten in a few months. Well, by anyone but Rafael, who still remembered being sixteen, sharing a beer on the flat roof an abandoned, crumbling concrete box on the corner of 183rd Street and Walton Avenue, listening to the same man who now called him a traitor to his own people talk about how he’d change the world for the better, call him _Rafi_ and make plans for how they’d get in trouble at school the next day.

But maybe it wasn’t so difficult for Eddie, who had been sitting right next to them on that sun-baked roof, to understand that Rafael would never forget Alex saying any of these things; not the vicious insults he had for Rafael on the evening news now and not those honest, enthusiastic speeches that forever anchored a deep affection for Alex inside him, either.

“I try to tune out all his and his wife’s charming descriptions of my person,” Rafael said, when he realised he had waited too long to pretend it didn’t bother him.

“It’s brutal.”

“You know Alex when he’s got a goal.”

Eddie made a dark humming noise of agreement. “ _Un pitbull_.”

“Indeed. But I’m not going to be stupid enough to bite back and give him a target. There’s half a dozen cases on my desk. I have other people who need my attention more urgently and for far less asinine reasons.” Rafael tried to push the thought of Alex’s smear campaign away, abruptly changing tracks. “What about you? You kept your job?”

“Yeah. My boss wasn’t happy, but it’s gonna be okay.”

Typical, Rafael thought. Rikers would probably keep on people as prison guards who had been actually convicted of rape, not just muddily involved in some politician’s white collar crap. Ironic how their system worked out in his favour for once.

“Good,” he said because he _was_ happy that Eddie wasn’t on the street. Maybe he’d have deserved to get fired, but Rafael certainly wasn’t objective enough to vote for that. He had always found it difficult to convict Eddie for doing stupid things in the name of friendship, which was really the biggest reason Eddie had ever gotten in trouble, lapdog-loyal as he was to the people he cared about. That went back decades: Eddie had been dragged to the headmaster for beating up kids to protect Rafael half a dozen times at least, and it would have been many more had their teachers actively cared about the things their students got up to.

He let his head loll against the armchair’s backrest, staring up at the ceiling and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. Thinking about this mess and a past that seemed centuries away sapped his energy, but he didn’t want to stop talking to Eddie, not after Eddie had extended a hand towards him when he really hadn’t needed to. Rafael was not a kind man himself, but he appreciated the trait it in others.

“Listen, Eddie, I think I’m about to fall asleep on my paperwork. Would you like to meet up sometime for a coffee?”

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie said, sounding surprised. “I’ll text you when I know my schedule at work, alright?”

“Sounds good.” Rafael tapped his fingertip against the phone. “Thank you for calling.”

“ _De nada_ , Rafi.”

Perhaps it was because he was sleepy, but Rafael smiled briefly at the nickname. Out of Eddie’s mouth, he didn’t mind it.

-

Three days later, they met up in a coffee shop on Lafayette Street during Rafael’s lunch break. Rafael was scrolling through a perp statement’s transcript when he spotted Eddie heading through the glass doors out of the corner of his eyes. As Eddie stood in the entrance and surveyed the café, Rafael took in his jeans with their frayed seams, heavy boots stained with mud from the rainy street outside and a black leather jacket hanging lopsided over an old t-shirt. Among the tenants of this Manhattan café, Eddie looked hopelessly out of place – the uniform around these parts was suit and tie, perhaps the occasional stick-thin twenty-something enjoying casual Friday in slacks and a tasteless shirt. If Eddie noticed, it didn’t seem to bother him, though. He paid no attention to anyone but Rafael once he had spotted him, heading straight for his table. When Rafael got up to greet him, he was immediately pulled into a brief hug, their clasped hands trapped between their chests as they closed in.

The waitress came over just as Eddie settled in opposite of Rafael at the dainty, black brass table. They ordered their coffees and, like Rafael remembered, Eddie took his black (although back in high school, he’d been pretty sure Eddie had hated the taste and just done it to look grown-up).

“Are you off work today?” Rafael asked.

Eddie shook his head.

“I usually work the night shift if I can. It’s easier to do with Manny, you know? I get to see him during the day and _mamá_ brings him to bed.”

“Of course.” Rafael realised he hadn’t seen Eddie’s son in at least two years now. “How is he doing? Does he get up to as much trouble as we used to?”

Eddie grinned. “No, thank God. Unlike us, he’s a good kid. You know, especially with...” His dark-eyed gaze flickered downwards, to his wedding band. “Well, he could do better in school. _Mamá_ can’t really help him, since she doesn’t speak English, and I still work too much.” He straightened his back. “But I know he can do it.”

“I’m sure he will. You were always cleverer than you thought, you must’ve passed some of that on to your son,” Rafael said, nodding at the waitress who set the coffee down in front of them. Before he took a sip, he basked in the scent for a moment. Eddie downed half his cup without preamble. Rafael wondered if he’d had the night shift yesterday, too, and how many hours of sleep he was missing just to meet up.

“You were the only one who believed that,” Eddie gave back.

“Considering that you managed to learn English as taught by a nine-year-old, I’d say I was the only one who was right.”

“You were a good teacher.”

Rafael just shook his head. Eddie wasn’t a genius, no, but he’d always thought it was regrettable that he’d sunken so deep into the role of friendly thug that people had assigned to him. Rafael had known him better than that; as children and teens, they had discussed philosophy and life and religion and people in their neighbourhood, and he knew Eddie had had a lot of emotional intelligence. Perhaps if he hadn’t also been so good at beating people up, he might’ve found a completely different way to define himself. Looking at Eddie now, though, he couldn’t tell anymore; it had been too long that they had been close enough to discuss the things that mattered. Rafael’s heart clenched a little at the thought that he really might’ve lost both of his best friends for good a long while ago.

“There’s something I wanted to ask,” Eddie said, after emptying his cup in one more mouthful. “Do you know what happens to Alex now?”

“That probably depends on how good his lawyers are,” Rafael said slowly. “The evidence is clear, but if they are halfway competent, I imagine he will come to some sort of quiet settlement and work the community a little more before he throws himself to the sharks again. It’s the damage to his image he’ll have to fix. I doubt he’ll end up on the registry or anything that damning.”

Perhaps that wasn’t what should happen, legally, but it was realistic.

“I still can’t believe it about that girl,” Eddie muttered into his cup. “I mean, I got a lot of people like that locked up at work, but _Alex_.”

“I think Alex was more into thinking he can do whatever the hell he wants without consequences than really interested in teenagers. It’s just a power trip. Not that it makes any difference.” Rafael’s fingertip ran along the hot porcelain of his cup, up and down. “The end result is the same.”

And the thought did make him as queasy as Eddie looked, though there was more worry mixed into his old friend’s expression, furrowing his forehead now.

“I should have told him ‘no’ from the start,” he said, putting the cup down to hard. “It felt wrong. I mean, we’ve known Yelina for so long, too.”

Considering his own life story – his wife had ran off with someone else, left him a note on the table with her wedding ring –, Rafael could imagine Eddie must’ve been deeply unhappy with the arrangement. It spoke for his loyalty that he had still helped Alex out. The way Eddie looked at Rafael now, angry, contrite, made him feel like he’d just listened to a confession, not the sort he dragged out on someone on the stand, but the kind of self-reflective musing someone would come up with in a church. Well, Eddie _was_ a staunch Catholic.

“That wasn’t your most brilliant move, Eddie,” Rafael agreed. He was still an attorney, not a priest. Absolution wasn’t his business. “But I know you felt grateful to him and Alex is _good_. He knew exactly what he could ask of you, and what he couldn’t.”

“He played me, huh?”

It was slightly heartbreaking to Rafael how sincerely disappointed Eddie sounded. Rafael had closed himself off the moment Alex started throwing threats into his face, shut it all away behind a mask which slipped only from time to time. Eddie had none of these walls and seeing him like this made Rafael feel protective, despite the fact that Eddie could probably still break him in two.

“Both of us,” he said, emptying his coffee and staring at the bottom of the cup. “I feel like we need stronger drinks for this conversation.”

“I knew there was a reason we called you the smart one.”

Eddie smiled, which still looked a little boyish even now that there were lines in his face, and seeing that lifted Rafael’s spirits just a bit.

-

“Man, Rafi, you really learned how to knock ‘em back.”

“I have better reasons not to be sober than I used to,” Rafael claimed, sipping from his glass again to make a point. A sardonic smile stretched his scotch-stained lips.

Eddie chuckled, leafing through the menu. Behind the wooden backrest of the booth, Rafael could make out the bar in the twilight. The stale air smelled of fries and cigarettes. Despite the fact that they had opted for an establishment that served alcohol to prepare themselves precisely to talk about the sad circumstances of their reunion, they hadn’t come up yet and Rafael, for his part, was fine with that. Instead, Eddie had shown him a few recent pictures of his son on his phone. Then, spurred on by a text Rafael had received, they had segued into complaining about gangs, Rafael about the ones he was attempting to lock away and Eddie about the ones he was trying to keep under lock and key, and compared them to the ones they used to deal with as children. Eddie had a few stories to tell about those guys all grown up, too, since he still lived in the old neighbourhood. It was a surprisingly easy back and forth, smoothly gliding from one topic to the next, but avoiding those that were too painful. For once, Rafael felt careless. Being drunk probably helped.

“The cocktails here are good,” Rafael offered, watching Eddie consider the cocktail section again.

“Yeah, but... you know.”

“No, I don’t,” Rafael said, looking at him. “What?”

“I’m not gonna order a girly drink,” Eddie answered, like Rafael had dared him to kiss a frog.

Rafael stared at him for a moment longer. It always annoyed him to no end when his mother implied that he had forgotten where he came from, as she so liked to do whenever he suggested she or his grandmother do any (usually sensible) thing that their neighbours might find even slightly out of the ordinary. However, it was true that this sort of aggressively displayed juvenile masculinity was as removed from his current social circles as the customs of a Martian. Then again, would Amaro be caught with a multicoloured drink with a slice of orange sticking on the rim? No, but he’d get decked if he expressed his disdain in front of Rollins like this, so he’d at least know not to comment.

“ _Dios mío_ ,” Rafael mumbled.

“You’re drinking scotch,” Eddie pointed out, on the defensive.

“Because it’s easier to get drunk on scotch.” Rafael raised his hand to get the attention of the waiter leaning on the bar and chatting with his colleague. While he disengaged himself from the bartender and strolled over, Rafael let his eyes run over the menu to find the most colourful candidate.

“One strawberry daiquiri for _me_ , please,” Rafael said, talking to the waiter but looking Eddie in the eye, eyebrows damn near meeting his hairline.

The waiter wandered off again to relay the message.

“You’re a C.O.,” Rafael pointed out. “Who is going to question your manliness over one drink?”

Eddie shrugged his shoulders. “Other C.O.s.”

“I’m not a C.O.” With one hand, Rafael brushed aside his suit jacket and pushed his thumb under his pink suspender, stretching it. “And I’m wearing these.”

Now Eddie was smiling again.

“It’s different for you,” Eddie said. “You never cared what anyone said.” There was a little admiration in his voice, Rafael thought, or maybe he was just flattering himself. Eddie tapped his empty beer bottle on the table and grinned. “That’s why you got beat up so much.”

It was Rafael’s turn to smile.

“ _You’re_ here, so I’m not afraid of that, either.”

The waiter returned, setting a pink drink down on the table. A strawberry was squeezed over the side and there was a little umbrella, too. When the waiter handed it to Rafael, he was clearly hiding a smile.

“See?” Eddie said, triumphantly, when the man had made his way back to the bar.

“ _See_ what, that he doesn’t like tips?” Rafael asked, unimpressed. “Why would I care what some freshman earning spending money thinks about my choice of drink? I promise you, your manhood will not be tarnished by a drink with a pastel colour – no matter what the newest member of fraternity Omega Chi Something thinks about it.”

Halfway through Rafael’s last sentence, Eddie raised his hands. “ _Vale_ ,” he said, exasperated. _Okay_. It was the way he had always admitted defeat when Rafael flooded him with so many words that Eddie lost the interest in disproving all his arguments. Despite rolling his eyes, there was a hint of something indulgent, almost gentle in his voice. It was a willing capitulation before someone you never wanted to have a fight with. Because how would they end up on truly different sides? It used to be inconceivable that someone could split up _los tres mosqueteros_.

Rafael drained the rest of his scotch, happy it wasn’t as weak as a daiquiri, for all his valiant defences of the drink. Eddie took a sip of the cocktail.

“How is the forbidden fruit?” Rafael asked.

“Good.” He looked down at the drink and held it towards Rafael. “Matches your suspenders.”

With a chuckle, Eddie placed his glass down.

“You want to try it?” Eddie asked, pushing the daiquiri back his way.

Rafael did.

-

The feeling of comfortable ease was torn off like a sheet when they stepped out of the bar an hour later. Wind struck them in the face. Rain came down in a steady, icy drizzle. Folding up the collar of his coat, Rafael turned his head away from the biting gusts.

“I gotta head for the subway,” Eddie said.

Rafael nodded his head. That was the way to his apartment, too. He turned to walk with him. There were deep puddles on the uneven cobblestone. Car tires screeched as they rounded corners. The streets were empty but for the vehicles and an occasional passer-by with an umbrella; it had to be much too late for a Wednesday night.

Suddenly, a weight lowered on him. Eddie had put his arm around him. His elbow rested on Rafael’s shoulder, his hand hovering over his chest. Eddie looked ahead, still silent.

His stomach tying itself into angry knots, Rafael realised he didn’t want to stop talking to Eddie yet, didn’t want this to be the last time this year he saw Eddie’s friendly smile. But what reason did he have to call him? He needed one these days, after all the time he’d neglected the friendship. So he wouldn’t see him again in months, maybe, when catching up was a good enough excuse. He’d go to his empty apartment on his own now and work through the night so he’d be too tired to bite the head off the first police officer who came running into his office tomorrow because of the disgusting amounts of self-pity and guilt that were accumulating in his head over Alex that kept his mood consistently low.

Though he was cold to the bone, Rafael could feel himself slowing his walk, prolonging the moment of companionable silence, of Eddie’s arm comfortably heavy on his shoulders. However, the pavement still fell away under their steps and soon enough, the entrance to the subway was bright with sterile white light before them.

Eddie stopped and so did Rafael as the noise of the city filled the silence between them before Eddie pulled him in for that customary, brief hug. When Rafael stretched out his arms and held on to him, it felt like a reflex, no thought behind it at all but a vague desire to fill the hole in his chest and to thank Eddie for still caring, in a way he couldn’t do with words after this much scotch even for all his professional eloquence. His fingers clawed in the back of Eddie’s jacket, the worn leather giving away under his blunt nails. He stood too close, chest to chest, their damp thighs pressing together. Belatedly, Eddie’s arms tightened around him. His thumb brushed against the nape of his neck and rested there.

They crossed about three different demarcations of what constituted a friendly hug while Rafael basked in the simple physicality, exhausted, dazed with alcohol, grateful. Then, Eddie shifted again, making Rafael raise his head. His hand repositioned. His whole palm covered the back of Rafael’s head. He leaned in and kissed him.

Rafael’s mouth was half-opened in surprise, so for a second, he participated completely on accident. Then, the scotch and his own destructive mindset got the best of him. Why not? It was good; Eddie’s mouth tasted sugar-sweet, his hands held on firmly and the press of his lips sent sparks down the nerves along his spine. It would most likely ruin their friendship, but what was a few more shards on the pile of shattered glass that this whole investigation had left him with? Now that they were here, Eddie’s tongue already in his mouth, it was a tad too late to reconsider whether hanging on to Eddie had been a great choice, anyway. Might as well enjoy what little time they had left.

He tilted his head, pushing in, but Eddie didn’t let him take control. His kiss was soft and slow, refusing the angry catharsis Rafael had in mind. Reluctantly, Rafael bowed to his speed. Eddie tugged him a little closer.

The kiss lasted longer than it should have, given that rain on kissing couples was only romantic on screens being displayed in dry rooms. Rafael felt water running down his forehead as they parted and blinked it away.

“Was that okay?” Eddie asked, sheepishly.

He remembered, like a branding iron to his frontal lobe, why he had never been able to fully make himself believe Eddie had tried to rape someone; and then that the reason they were back together was said apparent rape and a case of very real child pornography. He felt sick and a little dizzy.

“Yes,” he said. “To recap, though: ordering a cocktail was a crisis, but kissing a man out on the streets is just fine?”

Eddie frowned. To his credit, he didn’t step away.

“It’s not. I guess I – well, I don’t care about some damn cocktail that much.”

A brief smile touched Rafael’s lips.

“Would you like to come home with me for a coffee?” he asked.

Swallowing and nodding his head, Eddie turned away from the subway entrance. His arm was still tight around Rafael’s shoulders as they walked on, where it always had been.

-

Eddie had been the first person to know that Rafael was bisexual – he was the one who caught Rafael making out in the parking lot behind the school with Angelo from two houses down the road. They’d never talked about it. After seeing them, staring and then darting away, Eddie hadn’t spoken to Rafael at all for a weekend, probably wrestling in silence with the doctrines of the particularly medieval brand of Catholicism his father had fed him for the then fifteen years of his life. Come Monday, Eddie had caught Rafael alone before school, tight-lipped and awkward, and told him that if Angelo ever made trouble, Rafael should just tell Eddie and he’d take care of him. It was the exact speech he’d given the girl from maths they were friends with when she started dating her first boyfriend. Rafael had done his best not to laugh, feeling condescended to and relieved. Eddie’s well-meant, old-fashioned machismo trying to negotiate the complexity of a world it hadn’t been bred for was endearing in its own way. Rafael had known that Eddie had tried to adjust for him and that meant a lot.

Perhaps it had also laid the groundwork for a few more thoughts than Rafael had then guessed.

They got rid of their drenched shoes and coats before they patted into the dark living room, ignoring the kitchen and promised coffee, and towards the door in the back, behind which laid the bedroom with the tall wooden wardrobe and Rafael’s king-sized bed. Entirely too much adrenaline was flooding his system now that his drunken brain had had time to catch up with his actions. After they had entered, Rafael fumbled with the controls for the cold heater under the window.

“Rafi, you sure you’re okay to go?”

Rafael considered the question as honestly as he’d have wanted someone going to bed with him to do it. Eddie hadn’t had too much hard liquor, but was he himself in any position to make a decision about his sex life? After three scotch, he probably _shouldn’t_ be, but he was.

“I’ve been training my resistance since the election,” he said.

“Just don’t want you to wake up in the morning and have a heart attack.”

While he could give consent, this was a promise he couldn’t make, so he pulled Eddie in by the lapels of his shirt instead and kissed him again.

“What about you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Really?”

Eddie’s hands settled comfortably on his hips as he leaned in to kiss his neck rather than giving an answer. This wasn’t Eddie’s first time with a man by far, Rafael thought. It made sense, now that he knew he had an interest. Eddie was impulse-driven. He’d worked here and there before he met his wife, places where people wouldn’t remember or gossip about him, where it would be easy to have an experience and not have to look your priest in the eye at the _bodega_ the next day, and at a time when there wasn’t any person to be faithful to.

Eddie bit his earlobe. Rafael realised he must’ve been staring off into space. Pulling what little self-control remained together, he gave him an apologetic look and pushed Eddie towards the bed. However, the alcohol made Rafael unsteady and Eddie lost his footing when Rafael leaned in full force. They tumbled down in a heap.

“Ouch.”

Rafael freed his wrist from under Eddie’s back.

“Your fault,” Eddie complained. Despite that, he looked him over once, quickly. It amused Rafael and touched him deeper than he cared to admit. He pushed a cold hand under Eddie’s shirt, watching him shiver and smile.

They never moved far from each other. Rafael’s coordination was long gone and allowed nothing more skilful than rutting and pushing and holding on until proximity and friction had warmed them enough. Under his hands, Eddie’s body was hard, lean muscle and then, Eddie grabbed him around the waist and easily flipped them around in a fluid motion, Rafael’s back hitting the mattress so hard he huffed a quiet breath.

“Show-off,” Rafael said, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the head off Eddie’s cock, the fabric of the boxers still separating his skin from Eddie’s.

“Don’t be jealous, Rafi. Some of us gotta stay in shape. I’d get my ass kicked if I don’t.”

“ _Some_ of us, excluding me, of course. Is this how you woo your conquests? Let an attorney tell you that sometimes, lying is to your benefit.”

Unimpressed, Rafael dropped his hand from Eddie’s cock and Eddie laughed, pressing closer, before his expression sobered a little, his hand caressing Rafael’s side.

“I don’t talk with the men I’m fucking, usually,” he said, thoughtfully.

Well, here was a complicated fact best left to be explored with a clear head and pants pulled all the way up. Instead of an answer, Rafael resumed his work, watched Eddie’s expression dissolve from confusion to pleasure and couldn’t tear himself away from his dark eyes until they closed and Eddie kissed him again.

After too many drinks, Rafael was always slow, but even after he had spent himself over Rafael’s fingers, Eddie stayed patient. It wasn’t an earth-shattering orgasm Rafael eventually had, but a slow one, building in his core, and releasing with an exhale he breathed against Eddie’s throat, tasting the salt on his skin and feeling Eddie squeeze him painfully tight against his chest.

They laid next to each other, the crumpled tissues they had used to clean themselves on the nightstand. It occurred to Rafael he should probably get up and shower, but he was too tired and Eddie wasn’t moving, either, except to tap his arm.

“Can I stay?”

“After you called me out of shape? I’ll have to think about that.” Rafael answered, sated, bemused, looking at the ceiling.

“I didn’t,” Eddie protested. “ _Estás guapo_ , Rafi. As if you need to be told.”

“See, that’s better. You’re getting the hang of white lies now.”

Groaning, Eddie reached out for him, shoved his shoulder.

“Fighting with you was always a pain in the ass. Can never not have the last word, huh?”

“Obviously,” Rafael said. “Well, I guess you can stay. I wouldn’t let you run around the Bronx at night. I hear that’s a tough neighbourhood. Who’s gonna protect you?”

Eddie boxed his shoulder again, harder this time, and then reached out for him when Rafael actually winced because Eddie obviously didn’t have those muscles just for show. The quick way in which this ostensibly tough guy faltered at the earliest sign of Rafael’s displeasure made him laugh. Of all the things that had changed, this hadn’t. Eddie hadn’t.

Rafael couldn’t remember laughing in ages.

“What’s up?”

“I’m drunk,” Rafael said because it was the easiest answer.

Eddie just stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and pulled him against his chest.

“Completely shitfaced,” he agreed.

Rafael did not enjoy cuddling much. It was warm, sticky, and left you frozen in uncomfortable positions; but Eddie’s headlock brooked no argument.

-

Eddie was up before Rafael and his alarm clock, waking him with the creak of the door. He laid in bed, head pounding, confused, and in serious doubt of his own mental faculties. He had never been one to forget what he did when he was drunk, but that only opened the door to much more detailed lists of regrets.

However, despite how singularly odd it was to just have seen Eddie plod stark naked out of his bedroom, it didn’t feel like he had to review said list right now. Strange, but not wrong.

He dozed until Eddie was done in the bathroom and came to collect his clothes, which was when Rafael raised his head from the pillow. Their eyes met for a moment.

“Hung-over?” Eddie asked, teasing.

Forcing himself up to a ninety degree angle, Rafael hid a yawn against his arm. His tongue tasted like sandpaper and the headache showed now signs of subsiding, but that was probably less than he deserved for drinking like he had on a weekday.

“Bask in my misery, why don’t you?” he muttered at Eddie, who just laughed at him.

“I’ll make coffee.”

“ _Please_.”

With sleep-addled interest, Rafael watched Eddie pull on his jeans over muscular thighs, which he remembered rubbing up against his own legs and pressing firmly against his cock. He also remembered that the faded scar that ran up across Eddie’s right knee was the result of jumping onto a broken beer bottle on the playground. He remembered his heart beating fast as a rabbit’s as he pressed old newspaper on the wound while Alex hurried to get help, and seven-year-old Eddie sobbing, big round tears falling down his cheek and his nose running. Rafael had been so afraid Eddie would die, what with all the blood on their hands and on the ground and on the glass, that he wouldn’t have him anymore. That had been almost thirty-five years ago now, but the memory, and the scar, remained.

After Rafael had cleared his head with a cold shower and walked into the kitchen still buttoning up his shirt, he felt slightly more like a member of the human species. Eddie sat at the table, playing with his phone and sipping coffee from Rafael’s old Harvard mug – not that it was still recognisable as such, the letters had long faded.

Preoccupied with the coffee machine as Rafael was, he missed the sound of wooden chair legs dragging against the floor. Accordingly, when Eddie suddenly put his arms around him from behind, he almost spilled hot coffee over his white sleeve.

“Eddie, if you make me ruin my shirt...”

“Bet you got another fifty white shirts,” Eddie said and Rafael could all but hear him rolling his eyes.

Eddie was more rigid than yesterday, his grip loose, like he was waiting for Rafael to attempt an escape. He probably should have, but Eddie fit no less against him than he had yesterday. Rafael could feel warmth radiating from his body. He stood still, hands around his mug, and waited for a comment or explanation that never came. Here went their chance of quietly ignoring last night and going back to they way things had been.

“Are you back to not speaking with male liaisons?” he asked, after a long moment of silence.

Eddie made an undefined sound.

“I don’t know what to say,” he admitted.

Well, that was two of them, although Rafael felt that because words were his speciality, the burden should have logically fallen onto him. Hadn’t he described himself to Liv as having ‘the mouth’ of the group? But instead of moving it, he turned his head and pressed a kiss on Eddie’s lips – an experiment. Because what he really needed at this age was a guy who was neither over his marriage nor, he would bet, properly out of the closet. A fantastic idea.

Immediately, Eddie pulled him in tighter and Rafael was sure that he jostled him a little as he turned him around just to try and get some coffee stains on Rafael’s cuffs after all. _Pendejo_. Rafael tried not to smile – it would only encourage him.

“I’m making you wash the shirt,” Rafael threatened.

“Not now. I got the early shift. Didn’t think I’d be gone for the night.”

“I’ll show you to the door.”

They stood in the hallway together, Rafael still sipping his coffee. With a few kicks, Eddie slipped into his boots, not bothering to unlace them. Before he reached for his jacket, however, he turned back to Rafael and took a deep breath. He’d never been particularly good at hiding his feelings and Rafael could all but feel his nerves flutter.

“Rafi, you want to meet up this weekend?”

Meet up, was that what they did now? Friends with benefits? The preamble to dating? Rafael felt the urge to put a word on it. Maybe draw up a legal document.

Obviously, his last date had been a while ago.

To give himself time, he took another gulp of coffee.

“Yes,” he said, halting, remembering Eddie’s hand against his neck, and around his manhood, holding him later that night – the hand and the small, warm golden band. “Under one condition,” he added, drawing himself up. “We’re friends either way, but if you want to come here again,” he nodded towards the bedroom, “you’ve got to take off the ring.”

Lowering his gaze to his hands, Eddie said: “Oh.”

Rafael quietly sorted out how he would put into words the feelings towards this relationship: that he understood that Eddie still held on to his marriage, that he didn’t mean to indicate he was anywhere near as important as the mother of his child or even that they would just continue where they had jumped to after an evening of irresponsibly heavy drinking, but that if this was, against all odds, going to turn into a permanent thing, he didn’t want a partner’s shadow hanging over them. Of course, he also knew that with his work schedule and Eddie being a single dad, it wouldn’t be easy to make this work

Just as he was about to start on his speech, Eddie cupped Rafael’s face with both hands and kissed him on the mouth before he slid the ring off his finger to put into his jean’s pocket.

“I wasn’t thinking. Yeah, it’s not right to you,” he said with an easy smile, dropping his hands to squeeze his shoulders once. “I’ll text you when I’m off work, Rafi.”

 _Or that_ , Rafael thought, as the door closed behind Eddie, before he had the chance to add anything more substantial to the conversation than a startled ‘goodbye’.

Well, it wasn’t like he needed someone else to encourage him to overthink his life.

Rafael strode into the kitchen to refill his cup for the first of what would no doubt be many times today. Did this have any chance to last? His intellect said no. They were too different. Their lives had taken diverging paths. But, on the other hand, through all that, he still liked Eddie. They hadn’t been similar as children, either, and it hadn’t stopped him then. He wasn’t much like Rafael, but then, despite rumours about his ego, Rafael wasn’t enamoured with the idea of sleeping with a copy of himself. Still, all logic spoke against the A.D.A. dating the thug gone prison guard.

The coffee was strong and bitter on his tongue as he swallowed. Was he a realist or just a coward trying to find reasons to choke off the situation since he knew that, by virtue of their old friendship and rekindled connection, Eddie would have a power to hurt him that, in very little time, might exceed that of Yelina and even Alex, whose blows had already left Rafael badly bruised?

Maybe it was that; maybe he was just scared. Somewhere inside him, he knew how dangerously easy it would be to fall in love with Eddie.


End file.
